The first drawings I did were of people. I remember in elementary school, I copied photos of every U.S. president from a periodical my parents got. No idea why, just seemed interesting to do. As I’ve said elsewhere, when I didn’t have time to paint it was easier to draw and the available subjects were my family and friends. I have, somewhere, old drawing pads full of pencil and pen & ink drawings of my children, their classmates, my siblings, my siblings’ children, my parents. You get the picture.

In the more recent past I’ve started to paint family and friends sometimes as stand-alone paintings, and sometimes as part of a mixed media montage. Of course, painting portraits is much more challenging to accomplish than simple drawing. It’s an area I’d like to improve in, especially my mixing of skin tones. There’s always the pressure of creating a likeness while not neglecting other elements of the piece—composition, value, color, and emotion. When I’m lucky enough to have everything come together, It’s very satisfying to me as the artist and hopefully to the subject.